


Claire Becomes a Hipster

by Crooks7



Category: Original Work
Genre: College, Communism, Graduate School, hipster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 10:04:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2847074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crooks7/pseuds/Crooks7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of a girl that became a hipster in her final year of college.</p><p>Inspired by a Facebook profile picture and Harry Potter Becomes a Communist</p><p>Full Disclosure: In writing this I realized one fundamental fact. I do not know what a hipster is. I think it's a mix of a communist and a homeless person, but again I am not sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Claire Becomes a Hipster

Claire always fit into the crowd. She wore the right clothes on the appropriate occasions, spoke respectfully to all persons and as a result had a pretty easy time finding and keeping friends. They were all around her, in classes, at the bars and even the periodic house party featuring a keg paraded around like some Pagen god waiting for a sacrifice of a college freshman drinking for the first time.

After being at the College of William & Mary for three full years, Claire was just starting her second to last semester making new friends in her graduate classes as well as her old friends from undergrad.

The night before, her friends Alex and Kyle escorted her over to a kegger thrown by a fellow undergraduate, Mick. Now, it being Sunday afternoon, her hangover for the most part subsided and she was about ready to get back into the rhythm of the week. But before that chaos began, Claire took a moment to check out some of the photos posted on Facebook from the night before. Her hair, on point as usual, but most of them consisted of her in the background watching the party unfold before her. Only a few had a genuine smile on her face.

 _Why was that?_ Claire thought to herself. She went there with people she loved and remembers enjoying talking to them, but why didn’t any of that show in the photos. Claire took another moment and quickly flipped through the rest only stopping once finding one of herself. It was different than the others. Instead of hovering just beyond the foreground of her fellow partygoers she was the only subject. Claire was wearing a pair of oversized, bright red-orange glasses with a fedora resting lightly on top of her head.  She didn’t remember going to the party dressed like that. . . wait. Claire slapped her forehead, of course! Alex noticed her wallflower status and insisted on making her the center of attention. Alex’s intention was to force her to wear the articles of clothing ironically, but looking at it through her quickly dissipating hungover she rather liked the look. She liked how the glasses were just the rims. They framed her eyes nicely, but didn’t have any of the glass that would fog up or get dirty thereby impeding her perfect eyesight. 

With a few quick clicks of the mouse, Claire had an easy decision for a new profile picture. She leaned back and continued to look at her profile’s version of herself. She felt that she liked it more than she should. Alex wanted her to wear it ironically, but she didn’t. Looking over at her desk she began to think about an outfit for Monday. The glasses frames sitting on her desk, fedora laying nicely next to it. Why not?

Kicking around a mountain of shoes, Claire spotted a pair of Converse that she bought a few years back. They were your standard stark white sneakers with a few red streaks striped across the sides.  Picking them up, Claire could only grimace at the fact that she used to think these were cool. “Converse sneakers,” She muttered to herself, “so mainstream.” Tossing them aside, Claire thought of dropping them into the bins at the Rec, thereby passing them off to some starving children in Africa. _Not a chance_ , she decided, _not even little black children would want these._

Claire paused for a moment and thought about the shoes and the party the night before. It was too mainstream. All of it. Not a second of it didn’t consist of some mainstream drabble intended to water down society at large. The mainstream keg, dulling the minds of the youth. Claire scoffed at the fact that it was mainstream Bud Light, nothing acceptable like Pabst Blue Ribbon. Even the people were mainstream. Everyone always wanted fraternity boys at their parties. Why?

Claire smirked at her own epiphany before grabbing her toiletries. She needed to shower. At least do her hair for the start of the week. A messy bun just wouldn’t do it on a Monday. Reaching for the door, Claire hesitated. Why was she doing this? Taking another moment to feel her hair, her fingers gently ran themselves through the layers. It was fine, just not perfect. A brief flare of anger saw the true reasoning beyond her _need_ to shower. The shampoo companies that control the country at large use their skills in their bourgeoisie capitalism telling us when and how to wash our hair! This idea of _proper hygiene_ is an attempt to get more consumerism to take hold of generations of Americans! Well, Claire wasn’t going to fall for it!

Laughing, Claire threw down her toiletries and feel asleep in her clothes, because pajamas are so mainstream.

The next morning Claire awoke refreshed with her new perspective on life. She took a moment gathering her things before looking in the mirror ready to put her hair into a messy bun. She almost had it perfectly set until she realized how ridiculous she was being.  Dropping her hair down her shoulders, “Too mainstream.” She muttered. Thinking for a moment she tousled her hair a bit before donning her new red-orange glasses frames and fedora on her head, “Less mainstream, but not there quite yet.” She thought for a moment resting an index finger on her bottom lip. Staring at her reflection, it took a moment until it hit her. Of course! Taking her eyeliner she redrew in her bottom lashes and extended them well past the lid and onto the side of her face creating small wings underneath her eyes. “Perfect.”

Claire was about the rush out the door when her stomach growled. Quickly checking her food, the only thing left was a half-eaten bag of Mac & Cheese Cheetos. Her mom had bought them for her, and Claire was proud that her moment didn’t buy the capitalist driven, overpriced name brand. But Mac & Cheese flavored? Who are they kidding? It’s just more mainstream cheese. Claire rolled her eyes and decided to go into the office hungry.

It had been a few hours of doing work at her desk and Claire was continually shocked with each passing second that none of her friends had noticed her new style. Catherine sat with her back turned continually staring down at her phone. She was playing something that caused her to continually tap the screen. She kept throwing a question to Caitlin across the room, “Tappin’ out?” Claire rolled her eyes. She wasn’t into those mainstream smartphone games anymore.

Tyler sat, half the time with his back to the room, but the other half consisted of him either spinning in the chair or targeting someone hard at work and distracting them. Claire smiled. She had been thinking about who would be the most likely to join her in the rightful fight against the man and his mainstream capitalism. Tyler had always been the most hopeful in seeing the light. She made a note to keep an eye on him.

Larson and Caitlin both sat at their desks periodically checking their phones. The same phones that were probably the new cool device that everyone needed to be trendy. The only thing differentiating the two was the fact that Larson occasionally took a break and walked around the room. That is, she walked around the room on her hands. She wasn’t showing off, it was just something she did now and then, because why not?

“Hey do you guys wanna go to Wawa?” Caitlin spun around addressing the office and Claire hoped she wasn’t talking to her. The last thing Claire wanted to do was to give her money to a greedy corporation that spread itself all over the east coast like some sort of plague.

Tyler, Larson, Catherine and Caitlin all grabbed their things ready to contribute to the leech that is Wawa when they finally turned to Claire, “Wawa?”

Claire turned towards them peering through her glasses frames and lightly adjusting her fedora, “Ew no. I don’t want to give money to the capitalistic pigs of a big corporation. I’m into niche consumerism.”

“What’s _niche consumerism_?” Tyler spoke up. Of course he did.

“Well. It’s how I would rather spend my money at small stores. Not chains or big fortune 500 bourgeoisie organizations.”

“Sorry.” Catherine chimed in. “What?”

“Nevermind.” Claire turned back to her work, “I’ll see you all later.”

The four graduate students walked across campus to Wawa with Claire in the furthest regions of their minds. It wasn’t until stepping out of the massive gas station food chain that they spotted Claire again. She was standing next to a garbage can by the bus stop.

“Claire?” Catherine yelled.

Claire turned to reveal where her lunch was coming from. She stood over the garbage can for good reason because she was eating food that had been previously thrown away. Claire turned to the group with a cheek full of previously consumed Wawa giving a wave.

“Are you eating out of a garbage can?” Catherine stepped forward.

Claire turned back to the piece of food in her hand and quickly swallowed the remaining bite in her mouth shrugging.

Larson previously frozen in the back of the group pushed her way forward, “Oh no.” A look of concern struck her brow.

“What is it?”

“Claire. . .are you—“ Larson took a deep breath, “Are you a . . . hipster?”

Claire’s brows arched for a moment before settling low on her forehead, “No.” Wiping remaining crumbs from her lips. She saw the judgment in the eyes of her friends, “I’m just reusing what you wasteful, capitalists have thrown away as if it’s garbage!”

“That’s because it is garbage. . .” Catherine smirked.

“That’s beside the point.”

“No, I think that is the point.”

Throwing her hands into the air, Claire walked off down the street. She was done eating anyway.

Claire took the opportunity to walk around a little bit. She eventually found herself at Swem venturing around a part of the fiction section she’s never been through before. The reading materials started piling up in her arms: Kerouac’s ‘On The Road’, Norman Mailer, the magazine ‘Vice’. It was amazing the new world she had been led into just by opening her eyes!

Walking towards the checkout desk, Claire bumped into a girl a few inches shorter than her and it was difficult to see over her large stack of books. “Sorry.” Claire heard the girl mumble pushing past. Claire mumbled her own apology before turning to watch the girl walk further down the shelves. She was wearing a beanie, skinny jeans, oversized glasses similar to her own and a shirt with big printed letters stating, ‘I HATE HIPSTERS’. Claire didn’t know what it was, but she liked the girl. Definitely if she was checking out books in _this_ section of Swem.

Making it back to the office. Claire immediately moved all her mainstream capitalist mathematics texts off her desk and replaced them with respectable books. The first she cracked was ‘On the Road’ as she immediately fell into the Beat generation.

After a while Claire looked up and saw Catherine and Tyler staring at her. Claire brushed off the judgment and spoke up first, “You know the greatest thing about ‘On the Road’? It was the book that started the Beat generation. It was the original. It created the Beatniks. All these others are just posers.”

“Claire!” Catherine’s jaw was hanging limp, “Seriously, are you a hipster?!”

Claire rolled her eyes looking over at Tyler. Tyler sat in his chair leaned over to one side propping his head up on his hand. He was intrigued. Maybe there still was a chance to get one of these hopeless graduate students onto the side of justice. “I’m not a hipster. Their style is so mainstream. I’m a fighter against the bourgeoisie capitalism that will be the end of us all!”

“Oh my gooooooddd” Tyler chortled in the corner spinning slightly in his chair.

Claire was about to explode, but the moment was broken as their friend Brian came into the room. He was a second year graduate student, but still held an easy going demeanor in his shoulders. Wearing a maroon collared shirt, half of the collar was popped from the wind outside and it would be a while until it was fixed. His ruffled black hair always had a way of looking styled, even though anyone who knew him understood there was minimal effort that went into the actual combing of it. Massive cowlicks were not uncommon. Yet his hair coincided with his personality along with the small patch of scruff that was always missing just below his cheek bones.

Brian slid into the room effortlessly hardly noticing the tension that continued to rise with each passing second, “Hey guys.” It wasn’t until he sat down at his desk that he realized no one had responded to him, “What’s up?”

“Claire’s a hipster.” Catherine motioned with her arm to a grumbling Claire.

Brian’s eyes shifted over to Claire. His eyes widened with this new knowledge, “Claire. Is this. True?” Brian was always extremely articulate, starting and stopping his sentences in order to express himself exactly how he means to.

Claire had found her breaking point, she stood from her chair tossing Mr. Kerouac’s book aside, “No! I just—“ She took a breath, “You all don’t understand. Look at yourselves! Gorging on Wawa, eating your mainstream Doritos that you probably bought because you saw a pretty girl eat them on TV! Look at everything you’re working towards! Working to save big companies money so they can continue to shove their capitalistic agendas down the throat of the American people! Open your eyes, if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention!” Claire stopped for a moment breathing deeply. She looked out at her audience and saw a light in Tyler’s eyes. He could be reached. She continued, “Who’s with me! Capitalism is ruining our society! Money is power and it only leads to greed and destruction!”

Claire waited as her words echoed against the walls eventually molding in with the painted bricks lining the room. These words were a part of them all now. They would never leave.

“Hey everyone!” One of the professors from the program walked in, Dr. Larmis, “Claire.” Larmis gave her a nod. Along with a smile twice the size and more permanent than any human known to mankind, he had a large platter of sandwiches, “I brought something for you all. We had some extras from a luncheon.” Larmis put the platter on top of a desk surveying the room.

“So?” Claire clapped her hands together and then throwing them out, raising them up past her hips, “Who’s with me?!”

Silence penetrated the room. A pencil fell off a table and the thump of it hitting the carpeted floor seemed to echo. Claire focused in on Tyler as a decision floated around in his mind. His head once again was tilted over resting in the palm of his hand, he finally grimaced, “Claire, I was actually with you a second ago, but Larmis is here with sandwiches.” Sitting back up, Tyler raised both hands palms up shrugging slightly, “Those sandwiches look pretty good. So I’m going to stay.”

Claire froze before looking back at Larmis and then back to Tyler, “Well there’s no reason why we can’t have both.” Shifting her focus back to Larmis, “Where are the sandwiches from?” Surely Dr. Larmis would have the sense to support a local mom and pop sandwich shop!

“Pita Pit.”

“Okay no, never mind. Tyler, you’re going to have to choose. Those sandwiches are a part of the capitalist bourgeoisie. Dr. Larmis I’m ashamed of you.”

Tyler barely hesitated, “Sandwiches.”

“And you Brian?” Claire was desperate to find an ally.

Brian took a moment taking a deep breath through gritted teeth. Bringing both hands up to his temple for a moment he paused. Moving his hands downward, he swiped through the air in rhythm with his words. He responded, “Claire. I’m sorry. I’m going. To go.” Taking another breath, “With the sandwiches.”

“Fine.” Claire grabbed Kerouac and left without another word.

The cold October air hit her face as she left Jones hall. They didn’t understand, but she needed them to. Claire thought back to the girl she ran into at Swem. She would be perfect. If Claire could get one person to join her, then the rest would follow. All she needed was one. Hurrying off to Swem, she was determined.

It took a few minutes before finding the girl sitting at a medium sized table in the middle of the floor. She was reading _Slaughter House Five_ with her backpack that doubled as a purse next to her sitting on the table. Claire sat quietly across from her opening Kerouac and delving back into the world of ‘On the Road’.

Periodically Claire lifted her eyes noticing the girl’s knitted grey beanie that fit perfectly on her head with her large bright blue glasses tucked neatly underneath the folds. Her makeup was subtle with eyeliner resting heavily on her bottom lids. It took another moment, but Claire realized her glasses didn’t have any frames in them. Her assumption was correct, she was one of Claire’s people.

Claire slowly leaned across the table until the girl lifted her eyes from her book. “Sorry. Excuse me. Are you—“ Claire trailed off. She had fought to pull herself away from the term _hipster_. How was she supposed to say it? She tripped over her words before trailing off and hoped the girl picked up on what she was trying to say.

The girl raised an eyebrow and then smiled, “Am I what? I’m wearing a beanie in climate controlled indoors, right? So either I’m a hipster or a lesbian. Lucky for you I’m both.” She smirked again and reached across the table to shake Claire’s hand. “Looks like I’m your new study mate cutie.” She winked.

Abashed, Claire pulled her hand back slightly, “Sorry. I’m actually interested in the hipster part.” Trailing off Claire poked a finger through her own bright orange, frameless glasses.

The girl sighed leaning back in her chair, “Heterosexuality is so mainstream.”

Her name was Moon Butterfly, or at least that’s what she went by. She said her birth name Sarah was just some mainstream capitalistic bourgeois label her parents gave her.

“Wait. Question.” Claire cut Moon off on her current story of how she was donating to Haiti before the disaster. Something that Claire found truly impressive. “Why do you feel so comfortable with the hipster name? It’s always been something I’ve seen as a mockery, the people who use it just don’t get us.”

Moon shrugged, “I know what you mean.” She motioned down briefly at her _I Hate Hipsters_ t-shirt, “Sometimes you just gotta beat them to the punch. Own it.”

The silence fell between them for a moment until Claire spoke up again, “Moon, I was wondering if I could ask you a question.” Moon lifted her eyes followed by a small nod. “My friends just don’t get me and this.” Motioning to herself, “I was wondering if you could help me talk to them, convince them.”  Moon raised an eyebrow and took a deep breath. Claire continued, “If you don’t want too, I get it—“

“No!” Moon cut her off, “It’s not that. Just it usually takes a lot to turn someone so brainwashed by the mainstream industrial complex.” Claire nodded her head knowingly. “I don’t know. But listen, there’s this concert next week and they sound great and I think it would be your style. I have an extra ticket if you’re interested. It’s a band called The Dingo Diaper Brigade, yeah?”

Claire had zero clue what this band was, but she knew her place in the hipster universe. If it’s obscure she was required to love it. Claire forced her eyes to light up as she raised her eyebrows, “Oh yeah, I love them. Their last EP was so good!”

Moon smiled for a moment. “The Dingo Diaper Brigade was a name I just made up. There’s no such band.” Claire’s eyes dropped, she was a fraud. But then Moon brightened, “You passed my test. Only a true hipster would lie through their teeth in order to say they love something they’ve never heard of. I’ll go talk to your friends.” Claire and Moon grabbed their things and headed back to Jones.

Claire returned to Jones to find a much different attitude than when she left. Everyone was moaning in pain. Catherine was laid out on the couch clutching her stomach. Tyler was laying back in his chair still spinning. Larson was doubled over as Caitlin without shame sprawled herself across both her and Larson’s desk asleep.

“Brian, what happened?” Brian gave a half smile shrugging his shoulders slightly, “Apparently.” Swiping his hands downward, “Dr. Larmis. Gave us sandwiches. That were not. Good.”

“You seem to be holding up fine?”

Brian gave one last shrug, “What can I say? I have. An iron. Stomach.”

Claire did feel bad, but she bit her lip from spitting out an‘I told you so’. “Larson, how are you holding up?”

Larson lifted her head, “I’ve been throwing up for the last 30 minutes. Luckily my hair looks good to balance it out.”

A moan emanated from behind Larson on her desk. Caitlin was still asleep but managed, “Stupid Larson and her perfect hair. She’s the worst.” She rolled over and started to snore.

Claire was so taken aback that she couldn’t even speak up to introduce her new friend. Larmis came up behind her gazing at the scene, but was not as surprised as one would think.

Tyler sat up just far enough to address Larmis, “What were in those sandwiches?” Another moan escaped his lips before keeling back over.

The smile that was previously on Dr. Larmis’s face never faltered. Claire wasn’t certain, but she was fairly confident that the smile stretched even wider across his face. After a moment he started laughing at the scene before him. “The sandwiches?” Dr. Larmis laughed again, “Those sandwiches have been sitting in my office for over a week. They were all spoiled from the disgusting mainstream travesty that is the bourgeoisie Pita Pit. Take this food poisoning as punishment for your mindless allegiance to blind consumerism.” Larmis chortled one more time before eyeing the people standing next to him. He winked at Claire before looking at Moon next to her. Quickly examining the beanie on top of her head and the glasses resting low on her nose, “You’re wearing beanie inside, huh? I like it. So are you a hipster or a lesbian?”

Moon smiled, “Both!”

Larmis lifted his hand into the air, “Nice!” Giving her a solid high five.


End file.
